McGreevey Assailed on Bill Easing Developers' Permits

By LAURA MANSNERUS

Published: July 5, 2004

From most every beach blanket on the Jersey Shore, the message was visible. A banner pulled by a plane from Cape May to Sandy Hook yesterday implored, ''SAVE NJ,'' and urged a call to the governor telling him to veto the ''polluter paradise bill.'' It included his office telephone number.

The old-fashioned stunt capped a week of news conferences around the state at which environmental advocates, labor and housing lobbyists and local officials pleaded for Gov, James E. McGreevey to veto recent legislation that allows developers to get environmental permits on an expedited schedule.

And so a week that should have brought some relief for Mr. McGreevey, who had just won his campaign to curb development in the New Jersey Highlands and saw his expansive new budget successfully through the Legislature, instead brought a fresh round of assaults.

The attack comes from the same people who praised Mr. McGreevey just a month ago for the Highlands legislation. Now they say his agreement to what is known as the fast-track bill threatens to despoil the coast, increase urban pollution, hasten the proliferation of Wal-Marts and cripple regulations that protect workers from hazardous materials.

''It is a horrible bill,'' Paul Chrystie, the director of the Coalition for Affordable Housing and the Environment, said at a news conference of two dozen angry environmental advocates. ''It rolls back 30 years of environmental protection.''

Aside from having spokesmen dismiss the calls for a veto, Mr. McGreevey made no public response. But in an interview on Friday, the governor said he was perplexed by his old allies.

''We have arguably the most aggressive environmental policy in the county,'' he said. Recalling his decision 14 months ago to bar construction near reservoirs and waterways, he said: ''I got the same response from the other side. I was vilified by the builders.''

Responding to suggestions that he bowed to threats by the South Jersey Democrats and Democratic county leaders -- more-or-less constant adversaries in his own party -- who had held the Highlands plan hostage at the behest of developers and building-trades unions, the governor said only, ''It was necessary to achieve balance.''

While some people in his administration say the fast-track bill is not what Mr. McGreevey really wanted, the governor insists that it advances his long-held goal of revitalizing the cities and sagging older suburbs.

The bill expedites the environmental permitting process in areas the state has designated suitable for development, a total of about one-third of New Jersey's land area. It gives state officials 45 days to determine whether an application is complete and an additional 45 days to grant or deny a permit. An application would automatically be deemed complete if officials did not ask for additional information within the first 45 days, and the permit is automatically granted if the state does not act.

The legislation also establishes a ''smart growth ombudsman'' to act as an advocate for builders and to review all regulations affecting the state's master plan for development. The bill's opponents say this would effectively confer veto authority over a vast array of environmental, housing and even labor regulations.

The governor said that in the areas designated for growth, projects should not be mired in a process intended to protect pristine areas.

''The difficulty today is that government itself does not differentiate between an application which will ultimately destroy open space and an application that will rebuild a destroyed neighborhood,'' he said.

Mr. McGreevey and his environmental commissioner, Bradley M. Campbell, note that the legislation does not change any environmental laws or standards or override local zoning and planning decisions.

But many of the bill's opponents were surprised to learn that they were in what the governor calls growth areas. At news conferences in a number of sites around the state, environmentalists and local officials protested that applications for permits in growth areas to allow developments that involved sewage discharge, toxic waste management and wetlands use could never be properly reviewed in 45 days.

Critics have also raised legal objections. Last week Jane Kenny, the regional administrator of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, warned the governor's chief counsel that the changes could not proceed without federal approval.

In addition, the environmental advocates say, they are still infuriated by Mr. McGreevey's agreement with the Legislature's Democratic leaders to expedite the bill itself; it was introduced on June 14 and won approval without debate three days later.

''It was clear from the very first moment that marching orders had been given to the Legislature to pass this bill,'' said Rick Engler, the director of the New Jersey Work and Environment Council, ''It didn't matter how bad the bill was.'' Last week the council sent notices to 800 union officials urging them to complain to Mr. McGreevey.

If the bill has become a vehicle for fears about development, Mr. McGreevey said, some public discussion would have helped. ''I would have preferred a slower, more deliberate process,'' he said. ''But that's the way the legislative process works.''